Discover the robots used to solve the recycling crisis in America

The United States is facing a recycling crisis that buries cities every day in tens of millions of tons of waste. The problem began last year when China, the largest recyclable processor in the world, stopped accepting most plastic waste and cardboard US because of contamination problems and an overabundance of plastics submerging its own processing facilities. Historically, China recycled most of the American waste.

In the United States, contamination is high because recyclables are often placed in a single bin instead of being transferred multiple times or separated from the source. Today, China has strict standards for recycling materials, for example requiring a level of contamination in a plastic bullet, containing a tenth of 1%.

The situation is disastrous for many local economies as recycling costs soar. This has forced many cities and small communities to stop recycling. Now, more waste ends up in landfills and incinerators.

To address this environmental disaster, US companies and researchers are developing AI-badisted robotic technology that can work with humans in processing plants and improve quality control. The goal is to make robots better sort garbage, reduce the risk of contamination and the health risks workers are exposed to daily at recycling plants. Garbage sorting is dirty and dangerous work. According to a report from the School of Public Health of the University of Illinois, recycling workers are more than twice as likely as others to get injured on the job. The profession also has high mortality rates.

The operation of robots is simple. Guided by cameras and computer systems trained to recognize specific objects, the robot's arms slide on treadmills until they reach their target. Oversized clamps or fingers with sensors attached to the arms catch garbage, glbad, plastic containers and other recyclables and place them in the bins nearby.

Robots – most of whom have only been online for a year – badist human workers and can work up to twice as fast. With the continuous improvement in the ability of robots to locate and extract specific objects, they could become a formidable force in the US industry, valued at $ 6.6 billion.

Researchers like Lily Chin, a PhD. a student at MIT's Distributed Robotics Lab, they are developing sensors for these robots that can improve their tactile capabilities and sense of touch so they can determine plastics, paper and metal with their fingers. "At the moment, robots rely mainly on computer vision, but they can be confused and make mistakes," says Chin. "We now want to integrate these new touch features."

AMP Robotics, based in Denver, is one of the leading companies in the field. He developed software – an AMP Neuron platform that uses computer vision and machine learning – so robots can recognize different colors, textures, shapes, sizes and patterns to identify features. materials to sort the waste.

The robots are being installed at the Single Stream Recyclers plant in Sarasota, Florida, where they will be able to harvest 70 to 80 items per minute, twice as fast and with greater accuracy.

"By using this technology, you can increase the quality of the material and, in some cases, double or triple its resale value," said AMP Robotics General Manager Mantaya Horowitz. "Quality standards are becoming more and more stringent, which is why companies and researchers are working on high-tech solutions."

Meanwhile, San Francisco is busy trying to beat the curve in the area of ​​recyclables. It wants to be the first city in the United States to achieve zero waste through recycling and composting so that nothing is dumped or incinerated, "said Paul Giusti, San Francisco Regional Government's Community Affairs Manager for Recology. a resource recovery and reuse company.

The company that operates a large plant in San Francisco Bay has just made an upgrade of $ 11 million and plans to invest an additional $ 3 million this year in the high tech optical sorter and the robotics.

Waste Management, the country's largest recycling company, sees this trend intensifying across the country. "It's very difficult, with the old badets of recycling facilities, to meet the new industry standards that China and other buyers demand," says Brent Bell, vice president of recycling at Waste Management. "Companies and municipalities need to invest in new technologies to be competitive."

What robotics offers you with artificial intelligence is a whole new way to increase the efficiency and safety of the factory, Bell says. It's a new system that helps you monitor everything, including hazardous materials, he says.

To learn more about technology, transformation and the future of work, join CNBC at @ Work: Summit People + Machines On November 4th in San Francisco, the leaders of Dropbox, Sas, McKinsey and others will teach us how to balance today's needs with tomorrow's opportunities, as well as winning strategies. to face the competition.